Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

For nearly as long as I have been a Flash guy, I have longed for a better relationship between myself and the drawing tools available to me in the Flash authoring environment. That's not exactly true. I really just wanted Flash to be more like my beloved Illustrator. Now that Adobe and Macromedia have embarked down their road to application Nirvana, I am suddenly a changed man. I get it now. It's intuitive. Drawing in Flash has come a very long way, and I'm finding myself using Illustrator less and less.

This past weekend a friend asked me to clean up an image he found, so that he could have some vinyl wall art printed up for his kid's bedroom renovation. I agreed to help sight unseen, but experience made me reasonably certain of two things immediately:

1) He found a crappy web graphic online of what he wanted, which would never, ever work

2) I would need to re-draw this art from scratch

I was not disappointed. Here's the original image he provided:



As a reflex, I fired up Illustrator and placed the image, then broke out my bezier and went to work. After setting about 10 anchor points, and staring at all the repeated simple shapes, I was possessed by an overwhelming urge to run to Flash. I knocked out the drawing in no time at all, but found myself oddly melancholy after. At some point, after struggling for so long against the but-it's-not-Illustrator effect of learning to draw in Flash, I think I got good at it. And now I enjoy the heck out of it.

Both Illustrator and Flash are powerful, effective and robust tools of our trade, and both have their place in my heart. I officially withdraw my longstanding request to have their toolsets merged. Flash has grown up on its own, and the unique drawing tools it offers have grown on me. Here's the final product. Kid's got good taste in music for a 12-year-old...

The tool you choose to use should depend solely on the screw you're trying to turn. Same goes for designing Web projects. When beginning the design phase of Web project X, final deliverables should be taken into account when deciding which application to use. Every designer I work with is equally proficient in both Illustrator and Photoshop; while I'm sure every creative has their favorite, both are tools that can be wielded with awe-inspiring deftness. Will the final project hit the Web as XHTML or rich media? Or some amalgamation of both? Making this determination prior to design kick-off can save HOURS of design translation, giving your project a much better chance of coming in on time and under budget.

The formula is absurdly simple:

Flash / rich media = vector = Illustrator
XHTML = bitmap = Photoshop

I submit the responsibility to pose the question is shared. I will try my best to remember to ask - but as long as SOMEONE asks, that's all that matters.